


The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

by AlmostTransparent



Category: Kamen Rider Decade
Genre: Gen, and brief guest appearance from Michal Minato, mention of Gokaiger, spoilers for Kamen Rider Zi-O
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 16:37:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17083901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlmostTransparent/pseuds/AlmostTransparent
Summary: Some of the many futures that Tsukasa and the others pass through together.





	The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

**Author's Note:**

  * For [estelraca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! It's my first attempt at writing a Decade fic, and I'm sorry if it's not very good.
> 
> Please be aware that this contains spoilers for at least the first two episodes of Kamen Rider Zi-O. Michal Minato is, of course, the future Kamen Rider Aqua from "Movie Wars Megamax" (which I'm guessing estelraca has probably seen since one of their requests was for OOO ...)

Tsukasa was quite literally in his own world.

This was where humanity would end up after its inevitable destruction of earth, two or three hundred years from now; they had managed to find a similar ecosystem in space, and decamped there en masse to begin destroying that one instead. (Yuusuke said, "I _told_ you to stop using aerosols.") Its galaxy was made up of tiny planets, all so small that they housed around a hundred or so people each. Tsukasa's occupation in this dimension wasn't clear but he was evidently important enough that he and his friends had a little planet of their own, with a bio-dome for them to live in.

"Don't touch that," said Natsumi, as Kaito reached towards the controls on the central hub that operated everything within the dome.

He touched it anyway. Tsukasa was the only one who knew how to fix it, and how to use everything else. The environment here wasn't _exactly_  like earth, and the temperature and atmosphere inside the domes had to be frequently adjusted just to make them inhabitable. When everyone wasn't sitting there, too hot or cold or struggling to breathe until Tsukasa fiddled with the dials again, they were forced to take a spacecraft even for a short trip to the shops. As they waited at a traffic light, stuck behind a line of other craft stretching in a long curve around the trail of planets, Natsumi said "Who even designed this place?"

"Tech billionaires," Tsukasa said.

When they got back to their own world, one of the first things Yuusuke did was to start deleting all his social media accounts.

* * *

Aqua's world was the "good" future. There was clean, renewable energy; the problem of hunger was largely under control; countries were generally peaceful. It wasn't clear what Michal Minato had to worry about, especially since he was eight years old. Tsukasa's role, as his swimming teacher, was to encourage his self-esteem and help him get over his fear of water. This would help him as a Kamen Rider when he was older, and might make him less vulnerable to Poseidon, whose appearance hadn't been as catastrophic as it might have - but time could be re-written.

"Don't you think you were a little harsh on him?" said Yuusuke, later. "You didn't have to tell him that a giant squid would drag him into the pool if he didn't get in there."

Tsukasa shrugged - "And he believed me? He's eight, not three."

Natsumi had got a job as the school secretary, mostly to keep an eye on Kaito, although the re-distribution of wealth in this timeline meant that there wasn't much for him to steal; at least not within a school. He still came back almost every day with something he'd taken from somewhere: a teacher's watch, snacks from the staff room, school equipment, and she'd have to use the Hikari Pressure Point on him until he agreed to return them. Tsukasa, on the other hand, was surprisingly well-behaved. Dealing with a class full of noisy children every day seemed to be taking it out of him.

After three weeks, just as Tsukasa seemed about to give up on the whole plan, Yuusuke said "Why don't I come with you? I'm sure I could talk to him." 

The next day, Michal declared that he loved swimming and was going to work hard at his classes from now on. Tsukasa said that Kamen Rider Aqua was boring anyway, and now he wanted to visit AR Aqua, who was a surfer. 

* * *

Natsumi once suggested, just for the fun of it, that they each choose a different world to travel to. It backfired instantly, because she couldn't pick one and neither could Tsukasa, who was so used to exploring the dimensions that the prospect of choosing another one was no more interesting than deciding what pair of socks you would wear today. Kaito wanted to go somewhere that had the biggest treasure ever, and they did - only to find that a gang of space pirates had beaten him to thieving it.

"Who said the greatest treasure in the universe was gold?" Tsukasa said. "It was probably peace or friendship or something." Kaito didn't dignify that with an answer.

Yuusuke wanted to see a world where all his fantasies about the future came to life: jet packs, holograms, flying cars, robots, lasers, colonies on the moon, super computers and every other staple of sci-fi fiction.

"It sounds like something out of a kids' manga," said Natsumi, when he suggested it. Tsukasa just grunted and rolled his eyes.

"That's not fair! We went somewhere Kaito wanted to see! What about me?" Yuusuke complained.

He went quiet at the sight of the backdrop that had appeared behind them, on which a collection of pods floated in the sky above a magnificent cluster of sky-scrapers.

Yuusuke got his flying car, and promptly crashed it, distracted by laser beams behind him. He had no money here and, in fact, he didn't even know whether money still existed. Everything here was both voice and fingerprint-activated and set off alarms if touched, so he didn't want to take too many chances.

Kaito chewed on some kind of gelatine cube, which was what passed for snacks around here - "Why are you trying to pay for it? Just run."

And that was what they did.

* * *

 The Hikari Studio seemed to exist in its own time and space. Natsumi, and her grandfather, and Yuusuke were all still here. They all still had their memories of everything that had happened, every dimension they'd visited, every Kamen Rider they had met. No one was quite sure why. One possible explanation was that Tsukasa was just an anomaly, one that could never really be changed or erased, and his presence gave everyone else some kind of protection or at least anchored them to the same place as him.

The only hole in that theory was Kaito. Evidently, any protection or influence that came with Tsukasa didn't extend to him. Maybe he wouldn't let it - so stubborn that he was happy to let his timeline be re-written, though Tsukasa couldn't imagine where he'd be now. On his own world, probably, with that brother of his; united, since Fourteen had never existed. Or perhaps he had his own reasons for not wanting to be around for this, and had simply decided to go to some other dimension until Tsukasa and the others could take care of everything.  When Kaito did show up, Tsukasa would find a way to get back at him for making Natsumi and Yuusuke worry.

They both cried when they saw Oma Zi-O's world, or rather what was left of it, refugees hiding out in the wreckage. Amidst the statues of past Kamen Riders, there did not seem to be one of Decade.

" _Sougo Tokiwa's first battle_ ," Yuusuke read from the plaque that accompanied the largest statue, this one of a young man frozen in the middle of his transformation, "Who is he?"

No answer came. Tsukasa was the Destroyer of Worlds, and he would have to visit that one by himself.

 


End file.
